Do the Conga Series

by Uday Dhar

 

[Editor’s Note: Click on each image below to view it at full size.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artist Statement

These works relate to my experience as a gay man coming to terms with my sexual identity in the hedonistic times just after Stonewall. New York City was a vibrant, yet gritty town, and sex and drugs and music were the normal phenom.

The drawings are about memory as Compression. Time, Space, Music, Experiences all collapse into a dream that I wanted to translate into a visual language that is depicted by jostling forms and overlapping colors all tied into a compressed mass.

The drawing are my evocation of that time as a memory capsule. They are a connection to a time that is lost in the present day – an era defined by fragmentation and vitriol. These works celebrate pure joy and pleasure. They evoke the hot muggy summer days from July and August when everything in New York goes a bit nuts.

The drawings were sketched at various time periods (dates marked). They are a diaristic exercise. Only recently in the past 6 months has color and form been added.

The works are abstract because without specifying location or even a moment, they are about a time, place, and celebration. A transcendence.

 

Uday K. Dhar is an artist of South Asian descent who has lived in the United States simce 1971. He is an out and proud gay man who got married last year to his partner of 27 years. His partner grew up in the the former GDR, and they met in Berlin just after the wall came down. These experiences are the basis of Uday’s art practice. They refer to the possibilities that open up as it reflects on the nature of desire and curiosity about the Other.

Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.

Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.

Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.

Submissions

Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2023. Submit here.

Upcoming

04/01 • Lu Chekowsky
04/08 • Robin Turner
04/15 • Beth Sherman
04/22 • TBD
04/29 • TBD